That is a pretty convenient location. I am a landlord. I would be licking my chops to raise my rents as well as attract a more desirable rental base. Typically, less affluent tenants are more costly tenants due to their overcrowding. This leads to excessive wear and tear on things like refrigerator doors, toilets being overused, washing machines being overused, excess water consumption, etc. Having adequate housing should be almost a right. Having housing in an expensive neighborhood should not be.

Lots of people have thought about this. One thing you see is that LLs try to pressure the old tenants out so they can convert to condos (as described in the recent Washington Post series). Other times LLs will slowly renovate their buildings, fixing up the units as they open and renting to wealthier tenants — so you’ve got one group of newer tenants in nicer apartments paying more, and the older group paying the rent-controlled rents in unrenovated units. There are quite a few buildings like this on 16th St. With the housing market slowing, I am inclined to believe these changes in Petworth will be less dramatic than in Columbia Heights/Adams Morgan/Mt. Pleasant, but I could be wrong.

I imagine there is some resentment. But if the LL is a law abiding person who is not kicking anyone to the curb or pressuring the older tenants to leave (by denying services, threatening to call the INS, etc), I would hope that we could have some nice mixed income housing in the neighborhood. At least for the short-term.

I do not know too much about the development, but you might be interested in researching/looking into a new “luxury” apartment complex in Ledroit Park called McGill Row (it is at 2nd and W NW). It is a set of three low-rise buildings. Up until not long ago, all three buildings were basically low-income housing. Two of the buildings were gutted as people moved out and turned into “luxury” condos. Nobody bought them so they made it rentals instead. The third building is not renovated and is still low-income style housing.

Landlords should not have to force anyone out. In theory, they should be able to raise their rent to reflect the market. That’s not forcing people out. That’s forcing people to stay where they can afford to live without the gov’t forcing the landlord to subsidize their poor/inefficient choices in life. I’d love to live in G’town. But I have petworth $. As such, I get in where I fit in.
I remember living in a bldg in SW DC. There were people in the building paying less than $500/month simply by virtue of moving there decades ago. I don’t see how that is fair to the new college grads,,for instance, that are forced to stay farther from work while retirees get the luxury of living downtown for pennies on the dollar.

A lot of these buildings are rent controlled meaning that they can only raise the rent a small amount annually and take larger (but still within certain parameters) increases when the tenants change. I used to live in Harvard Hall on Harvard Street in the early 90s which was like that (and still is). That is why there are tenants who have been there for 40 years or more.

I think it’s unfair. I work hard for my pennies and I have to be subject to market rate rent while someone who has lived there forever pays 1/3 of what I pay. If you’re going to offer rent control then young people just starting out should be allowed to participate.

INMHIIYNTYAH: Rent controlled apartments are open to anyone, regardless of age. It’s a condition on the dwelling, not the tenant.

People who are in rent control places (young or old) just tend to hang on to them, so the are hard to come by.

BUT– newer places aren’t subject to rent control, so anything that’s newer or recently renovated isn’t part of the pool.

so not all buildings have rent control? Guess I lucked out then!

In these older buildings, the owners typically made a smaller original investment; they bought when it was cheap. So, even though their rent revenues are lower, they are still earning a fine return on that investment.

Usually, the vacant units get higher rents, up to the allowable maximum, whether or not the landlord actually fixes them up. The other residents may benefit from better maintenance (and wealthier new neighbors), or the landlord may try to push them out through a slew of hassling techniques — no maintenance, repairs at inconvenient times, etc. Landlords can also try to buy them out, often on the cheap, or intimidate them through all sorts of threats, especially threats of calling immigration or trying to confuse elderly folks. And, of course, they can make the building uninhabitable and then try to flip it.

So, there’s no clear pattern. It can be win/win for all. But those new condo dwellers can find themselves living right next door to a slumlord who owns a 1/2 vacant building he can neither rent nor develop– which is what happened to the building next to my house.

Also, the lower permissible rent raise per year for the elderly only applies if their income falls below a certain level (though I don’t know exactly what that is).

In my building in AM, the landlord has just been replacing older tenants as they leave with newer ones and renting the units at market rate without making any improvements whatsoever. The rental market is so tight here, he can do it.

I believe rent control only applies to buildings of more than four units constructed prior to 1975.

Actually, I was gonna tell Nate that Fox News is hiring….